Daily Human Digest
Every day, the staff of the Genetic Literacy Project scours the Web for stories on a range of human genetics issues, including gene editing, regulations and bioethics, gene therapy, epigenetics, personal genomics, evolution, ancestry and artificial intelligence. We publish excerpts of those stories and encourage our readers to visit the original publications for the complete stories.
Ancient battle of sexes explains promiscuity, good parenting
Making babies is one of the fundamental conflicts of interest between the sexes. Care by either partner is beneficial to ...
What makes genes tick?
The expectation is that by uncovering the switches and genes they control, scientists can add depth to genetic findings like ...
Your genes: Part dad, part mom and a dollop of mother’s bacteria
A good mom always knows to pack a little something extra — even when it comes to genetic material. According ...
How Beethoven can help us understand the human epigenome
Almost every cell in your body has the same DNA sequence. So why is a heart cell different from a ...
Self-destructing genes reveal novel approach to therapy
Bioengineers at The University of Texas at Dallas have created a novel gene-delivery system that shuttles a gene into a ...
Unraveling mystery of obsessive-compulsive disorder: A personal journey
This daily ordeal, among other irrational behaviors I suffered, was physically and emotionally exhausting, yet it wouldn't subside until I ...
Science says it’s time to abandon gender binary view
Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or absence ...
Stem cells show promising results in treating malaria
Human stem cells engineered to produce renewable sources of mature, liver-like cells can be grown and infected with malaria to ...
Climate change will make infectious disease outbreaks more common
As the catastrophic Ebola outbreak showed the world recently, the modern age of global air travel has made it far ...
Is Nature safer, healthier in medicine and food? Deadly take on controversial topic
It's called the "naturalist fallacy". Naturalist beliefs that seeds or foods developed in part by scientists, often working in laboratories, ...
What did the real paleo diet look like?
Reconstructions of human evolution are prone to simple, overly-tidy scenarios. Our ancestors, for example, stood on two legs to look ...
Plato, Beyoncé, and everything in between stored in one tablespoon of DNA
Even though it’s looking increasingly likely that humanity will find a way to wipe itself off the face of the ...
NYC subways a germafobes worst nightmare? Study authors denouce ‘fear-based’ reporting
Recently, our paper published in Cell Systems surveyed DNA of the entire NYC subway system. Specifically, we had fragments of DNA that matched a myriad of ...
Glow-in-the-dark protein helps neuroscientists peer into brain
Neuron activity is used as everything from an indicator of our most fundamental impulses to a model for computers, but ...
Dinosaurs guided evolution of early mammals
In the days of the Jurassic, dinosaurs ruled the Earth, while early mammals cowered in their shadows. That used to ...
E.O. Wilson: Synthetic life isn’t going to kill us
Biologist Edward O. Wilson, a two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient and the author of The Meaning of Human Existence, sees the future of biology ...
Kit expands genetic screening options for Ashkenazi Jewish couples
When a Jewish couple is planning their wedding or anticipating starting a family, they probably aren’t thinking much about rare ...
Neuroscientists deride Human Brain Project as misguided, unhelpful
If you want to make a neuroscientist scoff, mention the billion-dollar-plus Human Brain Project. More or less Europe’s version of ...
20-year saga with brain disease highlights questions about precision medicine plan
Which chapter came first? Was it the genetic predilection for alcohol that created [Barbar's] lifestyle (pure chaos) and environment (streets, shelters, hotels)? ...
Bob Simon’s final 60 Minutes: Grinding progress of ZMAPP Ebola GMO drug
The final story of Bob Simon's brilliant journalism career put him in the middle of a GMO controversy--the use of ...
‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ rewritten for horny biology nerds
Ricki Lewis, a genetic counselor and biology textbook author, has her own unique take on the salacious bestselling book and now ...
For cancer, timing and order of mutations determine outcome
For the first time, researchers have proved that the order in which cancer genes mutate affects the type of malignancy ...
Chief medical examiner promises to boost NYC’s poor handling of criminal investigations
She is the closest thing to a hometown medical examiner that a city of eight million people could really expect ...
Trouble settling down? Sexual promiscuity may be hardwired in genes
Next time your significant other catches you in bed with someone else, try this defense: "Don't take it personally, babe ...
Screening for rare disorder saves couple from second childbirth nightmare
A Colorado couple has two healthy children thanks to sophisticated genetic screening. They were able to choose disease-free embryos over ...
Coming age of Xenotransplantation: Would you accept an organ from a pig to save your life?
21 people die every day in the US awaiting a transplant. A shortage of organs means a shortage of organs ...
Designer children? Will movement for 3-parent babies change how we view parenthood?
Last week members of the British House of Commons passed a bill legalizing mitochondrial DNA transfers--a process that combines three ...
